Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you to the officials from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans who are here.
I want to begin by making the point that I made on Tuesday when the minister was here. We have a great deal of concern with the fact that the main estimates and the supplementary estimates are before us before we've seen the plans and priorities report from the department. We think that's putting the cart before the horse. We would certainly expect that once those plans are tabled we would then have an opportunity to further complete our analysis of these documents and hopefully invite you back in order to finish that up before we're asked to vote on the main estimates. I wanted to make that point again.
In terms of the habitat program, let me ask you this. The Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, in his fall report, raised concerns over the department's understanding of some of the changes to the Fisheries Act that we've talked about on many occasions. I quote from the report:
Department officials told us that DFO has not yet fully determined the impact of these amendments coming into force or the impact of the policy changes.
In particular the question of HADDs was raised, and whether this policy would remain in place after the changes to the Fisheries Act. That kind of gets to what you were just referring to.
Could you respond, please, to what the commissioner had to say, given your understanding of the impact of the changes resulting from these amendments?